In the new issue of Closer Weekly, Jase and Missy Robertson open up about their family struggles, overcoming their daughter’s health crisis and for the first time — reveal the heartbreaking news that Missy suffered a miscarriage.

“I was about eight to 10 weeks along when I miscarried, just enough time to be excited about it and start telling everyone,” Missy shares exclusively with Closer, remembering the short-lived time she was pregnant again in 2002 after giving birth to two sons, Reed and Cole.

“I’d heard of tubal pregnancies for years, but didn’t really understand the mental anguish of actually having to go in and have someone remove what could’ve been your child. It was extremely difficult, and there was a lot of pain and bleeding,” she adds.

“I was only 30 when that happened and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, does this mean it’s over for me?’”

But with “a lot of prayer and a lot of family,” the Duck Dynasty stars persevered through those emotional days and became pregnant again with Mia just three months later.

Thirty-one weeks into that pregnancy, Missy’s doctor revealed that Mia had at least a cleft lip, but it would be unclear until birth if she’d also have more severe issues.

@MissyDuckWifeMia keeps a positive attitude in the hospital last January

“When Mia came out, I looked at her and thought, ‘This is going to be rough,’” Jase sheepishly admits to Closer.

But when the doctors were concerned she couldn’t breathe on her own, it made Jase quickly reassess his initial reaction. “I thought, why am I so upset about what she’s going to look like? I just wanted her to live.”

Eleven years later, Mia’s not only lived, but thrived — bravely battling through five operations, the most recent being a grueling bone-graft procedure in January.

“Life’s a gift,” Jase tells Closer. “As long as we’re living, we can get through anything.”

Read the full interview from Jase and Missy, including a full heath update on Mia and the family’s reaction to Reed’s frightening suicidal thoughts, in the new issue of Closer Weekly, on newsstands now.

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